Interviews at restaurants

These can be difficult to do right and be successful. They will throw you off more than a regular interview will having been there.

About three years ago I was had an interview with someone from an energy drink/fitness company at a restaurant. Looking back, getting a cup of coffee probably wasn't the best idea. A lot of people that are heavy into fitness aren't exactly into coffee so that made a rather bad impression. I just didn't know it at the time but was one thing that cost me the opportunity.

The interview was also at about 8:00 AM if I remember right so I wasn't quite awake either which didn't help any. Early morning interviews for me have either been the absolute best or the absolute worst. There really isn't any in between on those interviews.

There are a lot of things that have to come together to be successful in an interview. You need to be prepared ahead of time for most questions that will be asked. Try to be prepared for the unexpected question also, it will happen. Do you think that I was expecting a question about certain things bothering me at the interview for the job I'm working at? If I remember right my answer was "if it does I guess I'll get over it". Needless to say, I was successful and have been working there for over two years now.

My next book

I've been really busy the last few days, I've been on a promo event with Get The Job and on ReadIndies. I've also built a roof over the porch at our house and it looks pretty good even if I say so myself. It's also keeping the house 5 to 10 degrees cooler during the day. It's amazing how much of an effect that a porch roof that measures about 16 feet by 5 feet can have on your house.

At the same time all of this has been going I've been working on my next book which won't be on job hunting. It will be called "Confessions of a Porn Store Clerk" and at present I'm at about 4,000 words of the rough draft. It has only taken me two days to write that much which is blazing through a manuscript. One part of the book is about the crazy things that has happened in real life on my job. I'll admit that this book is writing itself, it's really amazing. It took me a bit longer to reach the same point in the 21 Days and Growing Things books.

Hope you are having a great day and wish you the greatest success in your job hunts.

My update since then is that I now have the rough draft completed. Tomorrow, I begin editing :-)

It's not a real long book at 6,500 words right now, it will probably get a little longer by the time I am done with editing. It's been a real blast to write, definitely different than the other books that I have written with how quick it has gone. I guess you could say that it's actually written itself and I've been along for the ride. Definitely not as quick as Frankenstein was for Mary Shelley. She wrote the rough draft for that novel in one night.

Meet some authors

We're having a bit of a get together today, stop on over and visit.




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The retracted job offer

I've been there a couple of times, with a couple of call centers. One, was for an Apple call center that never opened in 2007. There's another call center in the building which coincidentally retracted an offer also last year, guess I wasn't meant to work in that office complex. You read the email that's retracting the job offer and you feel just like all of the air just whooshed out. You're in one of those moments that no one wants to have and I have a few words for you.

Stop, take a bit of a break and get your head together. You got this offer, others will come as I know of for a fact and you'll be surprised how quickly they'll come too. Jobs that will probably be even better than the one who didn't hire you. Just receiving the offer to begin with means you are doing something very right, in fact quite a few things.

Virtual workspace

In many cases there isn't really a need for a physical place that you have to work at. So many times in call center work you could easily do the same job from home instead of going to a call center. You simply use an interface and headset from home to log, take calls, everything. There are some of these types of jobs now available through Alpine Access for one     www.alpineaccess.com/     and there are a number of others also. There are also many sales positions where you receive and make calls via your internet connection. I will note that you really do need a cable or DSL internet connection. We presently have Cricket Cellular broadband, the software the virtual call centers uses will not work through it.

Probably the main issue for most call center work to tell you the truth is control. Many call centers don't feel that because representatives can be watched closely. A few call centers have had issues with employees not doing what they were supposed to be doing in taking care of the customers. A couple of those call I've worked for in the past in fact had issues with this and yes, I heard the calls. They were used as examples for what not to do when I was in training with them.

Nonetheless, more and more call center over the next few years will be done from home. There's no issues with commutes, computer software licenses and many other things. Right now, because jobs are not as plentiful as they used to be there is a lot of competition for these positions when they do become available. So, be prepared to apply to many virtual call center positions before you hear from any of them.

Successful resumes

There are a number of things that are common to successful resumes.

One, they have a number of keywords throughout the resume. I recommend picking out the keywords you want to get across and then build your resume.

Two, they show accomplishments. The more accomplishments that you can show the better off you are. Did you get an employee of the month award at some point? Add to the appropriate entry as a bullet point. Were you hired as a temp employee and were then hired permanent? If so, add it as a bullet to that job entry. Did you make the honor roll in college? Add it as a bullet point to your college entry.

Three, take a break once you've put that much together. Then come back and edit, edit, edit some more. If it doesn't need to be there get rid of it. Make sure it is extremely readable extremely quickly. You have six seconds total in which you can impress them. That was according to a recent study on how long spend looking at a resume.

I wish you the best, have a great job hunt.

Face to face networking

No matter what your age is some going door to door is necessary. If nothing else to find out where positions are now open that aren't listed online. There are quite a few of those actually. This especially applies to young job seekers as they don't have much experience to offer.
Whenever you go out networking face to face make sure you are dressed to interview for the job on the spot. For office employment wear a suit, for fast food nice jeans and a button up plain shirt. It all depends on the job that you are going for. Possibly for construction and moving jobs a t-shirt, tennis shoes and clean jeans would be in order.
By at least looking like you're ready to interview on the spot you are going with an advantage. An advantage over those who haven't looked at employer wants and needs.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone, powered by Cricket.